Essays on law, leadership, technology, and "things" – and arts, culture, intellectual property, and commons – and entrepreneurship and innovation – and higher education – and Pittsburgh and urbanism. One law professor's views of the world.

About the author

I have been posting at madisonian.net since 2004. From 2003 to 2011, I also wrote at Pittsblog, about regional economic development and the re-emergence of one particularly interesting city and region: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh-themed posts will appear here from time to time.

I publish a related calendar of academic events in intellectual property and information technology law and policy at IP and IT Conferences.

Recent Tweets

@FrankPasquale IP-based market-driven innovation becomes the exception not the rule. Has IP policy been upside down for decades?
3 days ago

Media and popular commentary has been divided between efforts to blame greedy ownership and intransigent labor. One emerging theme, which appears to unite the two sides, is that Hostess could not and cannot survive solely on the brand value of its history. Nostalgia only sells so many Ding Dongs. Whether or not Hostess Brands was actually innovating on the inside, whether with respect to its products or with respect to its cost structure or both, the company has had a reputation as stodgy, even eternally unchanging. Sort of like a Twinkie itself.

It was innovate — and appear to innovate, which is a brand value in itself — or die. Blame aside, one way to read the closure of Hostess is as a story of the failure of the enterprise (all parties included) to adapt to a shifting marketplace for its product. If the American Hostess brands survive, in a post-Hostess world, my bet is they are likely to be re-positioned within one or more much more innovative and nimble companies.

Could the current status of American law schools be characterized in much the same way, that is, as a challenge of adapting a historically-grounded, largely nostalgia-based product/service to a rapidly changing marketplace? For one account that takes that a version of that view (of law schools, not Hostess), take a look at this recent post on legal education and legal services at The Faculty Lounge. Be sure to read the comments.